Happiness as Your Business Model

incorporating the human drive for fulllment into your core business

there was this dude

wrote this book

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest...
The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter II

yikes. well, thank goodness there was an

By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
The Wealth of Nations, Book 4 Chapter II

but what is even more awesome is that this invisible hand aint so invisible anymore

its a big freakin comes in the form of...

obvious hand and it

and we are using these tools to produce all sorts of content online like

as we raise our voices, we are doing the stuff that is making us really freakin

we are raising our voices to our

we are sharing knowledge and becoming really stinking

and we get to do ALL of this while hangin

this rocks. it is an ideal economic situation.

okay. lemme take that back.

its an ideal economic situation for the people who are part of

i heart economics

it is still trying to gure stuff out

if only there werent those darned people in the equations, everything would go smoothly

see, most traditional economics see the world as lled with

Homo Economicus

characteristics of homo-economicus
efcient predictable motivated by the best deals inuenced heavily by marketing will always work in his/her own best interest mostly rational in buying decisions

(forgive me while I pause to roll my eyes.)

you and I both know that the people in the marketplace look a great deal more like

Homo Feelgoodonicus

characteristics of homo-feelgoodomicus
inefcient unpredictable motivated by what makes him/her happy ignores marketing messages where possible and rails against marketing messages that annoy will sometimes cut of his/her nose to spite his/her face buys crap that makes no sense whatsoever, like those big foam ngers for $10 at sports games

you just cant build prediction models for this stuff

besides

...is a multi-billion dollar industry

[insert staggering stats here]

the key is in helping homo-feelgoodomicus feel good

and this is where I segue into

lets talk a little about the history of positive psychology...

psychology had a long history of being focused on the negative stuff, like

but in 1998, Martin Seligman, proposed a focus on the study of POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY.

positive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

pretty complicated stuff

...but WHY happiness? why does this matter?

7 reasons that happiness is key to success

1. happy customers talk to more people about their positive experience 2. unhappy customers talk to the MOST people about their negative experience 3. happy customers are repeat customers 4. happy customers will pay more for an awesome experience 5. happy customers are loyal 6. happy customers will drive your marketing for you 7. happy employees are more productive, creative and loyal

so, what is happiness anyway?

exercise: what makes you happy?

for as many people there are on the planet, there is a different answer for what makes us happy.

but the American Psychological Association dug deep down into our hearts desires and found that there ARE some universals. and they are...

autonomy

autonomy includes:
feeling in control of ones surroundings understanding ones own resilience feeling of agency empowerment

competence

competence includes:
condence in ones abilities/knowing ones strengths feedback from others on ones performance learning and growing skills self-actualization doing meaningful work getting into ow

relatedness

relatedness includes:
interacting with others connecting with people and connecting people giving to others/being generous feeling loved emotional security acknowledgement and support (mentorship)

self-esteem

self-esteem includes:
your set-point or natural (genetic) condence level something you can work on through cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation or medications not inuenced from the outside world, but apparent when triggered by events from the outside world

the pillars of happiness

autonomy competence relatedness self-esteem or set point

from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA) 2007.

what is really important about knowing these pillars is to understand what works AGAINST happiness as much as what creates it.

fear

contributors to fear
ignorance misinformation insecurity inexperience fear-mongering mistrust

pew internet research noted that the majority of people ages 50+ who are not online are not online because of the scary stories they hear.

confusion

what leads to confusion

paradox of choice noise ratio lack of clear information secretiveness half-truths

loneliness

what causes loneliness

isolation distrust of others fear of rejection lack of acceptance insecurity

lack of control

what leads to lack of control

loss of control over the circumstances of ones life loss of agency withheld information secrecy uncontrollable circumstances

struggle for survival

remember maslows hierarchy of needs

you cant get here without all of these being taken care of

barriers to happiness
fear confusion loneliness lack of control struggle for survival

the axis of misery

industries that seem to be

hell bent on delivering miserable experiences

car rental companies

airlines

telcos

very consistent in helping their customers feel like

in order to be an agent of happiness, you need to either create the environment for it or you have to intervene in the barriers...

which means where there is the axis of misery, there is the opportunity to make $$ making people happy

(the bar is set amazingly low)

car rental companies

zipcar

airlines

southwest

telcos

skype

these companies have ourished in the void where the axis of misery entirely misses the point.

exercise: name an experience that made you miserable. Could you build a business that does the opposite? Discuss.

so...its one thing to remove the barriers to happiness, its a whole other thing to

gure out the basic principles of

and be aware of them when we are designing our websites, products or services, then we can

be agents of...

so for instance lets take

autonomy

we need to take the stuff that leads to people feeling autonomous and build it into what we are doing...

5 ways to create feelings of autonomy

1. give people tools to personalize their experiences 2. build tools that democratize previously inaccessible industries 3. offer clear and attractive choices 4. be open and transparent 5. dont lock people in

competence

5 ways to increase feelings of competence

1. create ow...simple entry point to more complex systems 2. allow ways for mentors to interact with newbies (create rewards) 3. build consecutive levels of achievement into the experience 4. plant easter eggs 5. dont talk down to your customer

ow - mihaly csikszentmihalyi (cheek-sent-me-high)

The ow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great freedom, enjoyment, fulllment, and skilland during which temporal concerns (time, food, egoself, etc.) are typically ignored.

achieving ow
skills acquired along the way clear goals feedback provided along the way user control facilitate concentration and involvement by making the activity as distinct as possible from so-called reality

relatedness

5 ways to increase relatedness

1. build in multiple ways for customers to interact 2. have many collaborative experiences 3. create simple ways for customers to share with a friend 4. design for generosity 5. create online/ofine meeting experiences

case studies

zappos.com

makes customers happy by

WOW customer service (autonomy) comments/shared feedback on shoes (competence) twitter, blogging interactions (relatedness) 10 core values (all of the above)

zappos.com 10 core values

deliver WOW thru service

embrace and drive change

create fun and a little weirdness

be adventurous, creative and open minded

pursue growth and learning

build open and honest relationships with communication

build positive team and family spirit

do more with less

be passionate and determined

be humble

the core values of zappos.com lead to an incredibly rich set of relationships - with customers, vendors and even competitors

customers

employees

win + win + win = win

vendors zappos

moleskine

makes customers happy by

giving choice in style of notebook - but not too much choice (autonomy) connecting the experience with turn of the century intellectuals (competence) moleskinerie (relatedness) social object (relatedness)

twitter

makes customers happy by

creating a tool for simple spurts of self expression (autonomy) ability to learn more advanced functions (competence) api allows people to build and be more creative with the core (competence) simplicity of tweeting questions and getting instant answers (competence) following others gives stream of consciousness (relatedness) learning about others day to day mundane to deep thoughts and emotions (relatedness)

ma.gnolia

makes customers happy by

holding regular PIBB chats, VIP program (autonomy) the ability to follow others and form groups around gathering knowledge (competence) give thanks (relatedness)

ma.gnolias

wordpress

makes customers happy by

plugin architecture and templating system allows for total personalization (autonomy) open source and transparent (autonomy) really simple hosted solutions all the way to self-installed (competence) lots of easter eggs (competence) sphere plugin, promotion of popular blogs, comment systems and trackbacks (relatedness)

exercise: applying the principles of happiness to YOUR company

I wonder what

would say if he were alive today to see his

turn into the much more active

of online communities

whatever his reaction, I bet hed be delighted with how the free market has been moved by the

of its players

because ultimately, the

IS about the

autonomy

competence

relatedness

of everyone involved

the

of your business relies on the

of your customers

licensing:

http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue

about those rockin images:

Many are from iStockphoto.com (totally cool site) except for:

kissing couple: http://www.ickr.com/photos/teointarifa/490408075/ robots with penny: http://ickr.com/photos/frogmuseum2/240455686/ web 2.0 montage: http://ickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/ wiki chalkboard: http://ickr.com/photos/teemow/29921948/ moleskine: http://ickr.com/photos/confusedvision/226129765/ twittering: http://ickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/420074166/ (http:// www.laughingsquid.com) zipcar: http://www.zipcar.com southwest airlines: http://ickr.com/photos/smartjunco/421611105/ skype cards: http://ickr.com/photos/ndm007/284882959/ misery license plate: http://ickr.com/photos/mollyeh11/931046867/

some references
Craig Newmark Quote: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/ 2004/08/15/NEWMARK.TMP Avant Game: http://www.avantgame.com Cruel 2 B Kind: http://www.cruelgame.com Microformats: http://www.microformats.org OpenID: http://www.openid.net Creative Commons: http://www.creativecommons.org BarCamp: http://barcamp.org Coworking: http://coworking.info Ma.gnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com API (Application Programming Interface): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API Friend Wheel: http://apps.facebook.com/friendwheel Great internet stats: http://pewinternet.org Whufe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whufe Porn addiction recovery: http://www.no-porn.com/

Tara Hunt tara@citizenagency.com 415.694.1951 skype: tarahunt747

www.citizenagency.com www.horsepigcow.com